It's now been several years since this thread began. I would love to hear what folks have discovered since then. Which trees are growing well for you? Which ones are not? Kevin in KC
Here in South-Ouest of France zone 8b growing Mapples is not easy; the main problem is hot long summer, when températures reach over 30° 35° 37° centigrade and hot winds from south burn leaves in september. Small young spécimens are not hot résistant at all, but 71 years old i am ! and dédicating much time patiently... so my trees getting a little bit old, they are becomming more easy to grow. Prudently i don't try too sophisticated cultivars but i have recently given up for a five years old mikawa yatsubusa, located 500 Km from my house... My best :arakawa , kamagata , seyryu , ozakazuki . Then tropenburg red and atropurpureum from seed . No problem ,they are safe and they keep their leaves until end november . I have also 7 'hiroha momiji' from seeds collected in Japan 5 years ago, they are easy and becoming great . Have a look . http://jalbum.net/a/1440223 Sorry for my scolar english , i enjoy so much reading you . I FORGOT BEWARE / sango kaku (pseudomona s). ueno yama in ground (alterneria on woods after winter freeze). koto hime in pot (blackening bark).
to the most part the main trees i listed still are what i call "death in a pot" New trees with some issues Ap "Bihou" it has died on several customers. Ap "Squitty" & "Abigale Rose" have been issues
I find this thread very informative. I would love to hear an update from you folks on Maples that you found difficult to grow. As for me I've lost 2 Acer shirasawanum 'Kawaii' and 2 Acer palmatum 'Goshiki Kotohime'.
@SLR2009 - good shout - it’s very tempting to only show and talk about our success stories! I’m afraid I’ve no experience with the cultivars you mention but I have had difficulties with Palmatum Metamorphosa - I bought a small subject in 2018, that looked ok for a few years then suddenly died, then I purchased a large 5 foot example from a nursery attached to an arboretum and that looked leaf perfect in year one, then lots of dieback in year 2, progressively worse in subsequent years. It’s potted in a very sheltered position. Some people do really well with Palmatum Seiryu and butterfly, I have killed several small subjects of each - but they were small 15-18 inch subjects from chain nurseries so it may be a poor source issue. Overall based upon my experiences I’ve only had trouble with these in the context of over a hundred other cultivars..so overall i think the landscape isn’t too bad
In general we have found cultivators with a very small leaf at maturity is also extremely difficult to graft. Our grafting success rates for those types of trees were approx. 10% - 20%. One tree in particular ( the bonfire ) was so difficult we only ever had 13 successful grafts in our 17 years of operating. We still have one mother tree in the garden that has thrived for many years. Another tricky one was the "full moon". Although we had moderate success with that one we could not figure out why the success rate was not better compared to all the other varieties. and @dicky5ash our most successful graft was always the seiryu, could not do wrong no matter what
I suspect my issue with Seiryu was the poor root stock. You raise an interesting point - I wonder whether grafting success rates has any direct relationship with ongoing robustness of the plants after say years 3/4.
Interesting thread. I'm glad it was resurrected. It is eye-opening for me to consider the possibility that there might be certain cultivars that are not expected to live for more than a few decades, even under ideal conditions. Of course I realized that some cultivars are less vigorous than others, but I had never considered that perhaps there never will be, for instance, a 200-year-old Shigitatsu sawa. On the subject of cultivars to "be aware of", one thing I haven't seen mentioned here is shirasawanums in the south. I'm in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. I've tried Shirasawanum aureum twice, and both melted like ice cream as soon as the summer heat arrived. Second attempt was a nice-sized healthy well-branched specimen shipped from Oregon, and I tried it in different locations only to watch it slowly wither away over 2-3 years. Exact same experience with Mr Sun and Little Green Stars (which looks like exactly the same plant BTW). However, I have had good success with Moonrise, and excellent success with Jordan. I've seen mention of suspicion that Jordan is a palmatum hybrid rather than pure shirasawanum and that would make sense to me. On another note, I see mention here of Sango kaku being problematic as well as Red filigree lace, both of which have been quite vigorous and healthy for me, without any issues at all. Sango kaku is a very popular tree here, and I see it thriving in many yards in the area. So, as has been alluded to elsewhere on this thread, not surprisingly, it seems that region has a lot to do with how well any given cultivar is going to perform. P.S. Somewhere else on this forum I recall a discussion about Akane being problematic, with many forum members reporting similar issues with leaf fungus and die off. I have no personal experience, just thought it might deserve mention here for those reading this post to learn about potentially problematic cultivars.
I want to add Bi hoo to this thread. I've tried a few over the past decade (all from different suppliers) and lost another and last one this Winter. Tbh it's been getting smaller and smaller over the last three years with constant die back. I will 'not' add another to my collection and IMHO it is definitely a buyer beware maple.
Bi hoo now there's a cultivar to send shivers down any ones spine !!! along with you Derek i bought this one in the late fall of 2021 for the reasonable price of £20 looked very healthy in the garden centre so like you this also was going to be my third and final attempt at trying to keep this cultivar alive over the coming years , i noticed that there had been some minor branch removal prior to me buying this but thought i would give it another and final go :):) First pic is when i brought it home and it does look quite nice , 2nd pic is the start of summer 2022, ok it's in leaf but you can see from the original 1st picture i have already started cutting back areas of the branching where it was starting to blacken up (shorter branches now) And finally some pictures from today and you can clearly see the progression of the blackening and spotting and die back on most of the branches now. This was bought especially with this purpose in mind just to see how long it lasted once out of it's poly tunnel protection and out in the real hard world. I have not touched this plant in any other way shape or form ie root trimming or slipping out , just a light feed at the back end of March and that's it, and as you can also see it's not looking to clever at the minute. Buyer beware for sure with this cultivar !!!
Yes, it's a splendid one that has a bad reputation... I bought mine in 2015 and have always kept it potted. So far, it's all right. I think it's the kind of tree that is so original that I'm trying to make live as long as can be. Just took these pictures, but I had to use the flashlight :
I bought two Bi Hoo trees from the same supplier knowing it’s reputation..one fully embraced its rep..and swung between looking ok at best and awful, after 3/4 years it snuffed it.. the other appears to love life..
How about AP Taylor, I've had two that died in the first winter that I had them? I actually went to look at some for sale in my local garden centre a couple of weeks ago but even in April they didn't look good, I left them there. In fact I enquired about them on a Facebook page last year with, if I recall, 75% of people reporting similar problems, also the page admin, a well known UK seller, said they were banned from her nursery after losing the majority of the 300 she purchased some years ago.
Yes i think we have all been drawn down the Taylor/Ijoshi , Marlo , Shaina and Bi hoo to name but a few "garden path" at some stage over the years ?? Seem to remember we did a list on lots of problematic trees to avoid many years back now and all of the afore mentioned were in the top rankings.
Totally agree with adding Taylor to this thread. Been down the same route as others. Lost 3 so that's it.
Yes agree with you for Taylor, my nurseryman Mr Maillot removed this variety. he told me that the creator of this variety "Van Son & koot" himself said that it was a disposable variety! heartbreaking...
I will agree with the comments that region has a lot to do with which varieties can succeed, and I suppose micro-climates have an effect too, especially with the tricky varieties. I know one well known Northern UK seller stopped selling 'Amagi shigure' because they had problems with them dying, but my example which I got from them has been fine, albeit a slow grower. 'Tsuma gaki' can be fussy and prone to burning if you give it too much sun and slow growing if you give it too little. Lost one of those, but have another doing better now. I bought a 'Bi hoo' some years back fully knowing its reputation but mine has been fine, only ever losing tiny twigs, similar to the experience of @AlainK and one of @dicky5ash's. I wonder if it is picky about what rootstock it is grafted onto? In the same garden another coral bark, 'Eddisbury', has branch dieback every year. Also never had any problems with 'Red Filigree Lace'.
Used to have six of these at one time , lost two , sold two , but still have the other two left one in a pot and the other in the ground which is doing fantastically at the moment , a stunning electric magenta leaf colour this season . It's sandwiched between a huge Amber and purple ghost which really protect and keep it safe, and the potted one is between a ryusen and ornatum again well protected from the sun.
Woww they are absolute corkers!I haven’t seen one quite that colour before. I’d like to add one to my collection but sourcing is an issue. I noticed that an online seller of various plants is currently selling them but after a terrible experience last year I won’t touch that seller with a barge pole! I’d rather smoke the £40 they are asking for them!
This is what made them so popular , every body wanted one when they hit the UK market because of the stunning colours , but they didn't last that long once you got them home !!! Then the penny dropped because people just couldn't keep them going/alive so they earned a very bad reputation for being a problematic cultivar with severe die back. Very rarely see them now at specialist nurseries purely because of it's reputation , know a few people who won't stock them for this reason alone.
Six years ago i got one ‘amagi shigure’, 3 years later it vas a pitty , (disease) => Finally i gave it to fire ... Then 3 years ago i got a second one. And now, this one présents a severe die back . Always very beautiful in spring, but problematic cultivar. That is my bad expérience with it.
This is a very informative thread. Didn't realise there are so many issues with some cultivars. Thank you for keeping it going!
